• A new LGBTQ+ forum is now being trialed and there have been changes made to the Support and Advice forum. To read more about these updates, click here.
  • Hey Trainers! Be sure to check out Corsola Beach, our newest section on the forums, in partnership with our friends at Corsola Cove! At the Beach, you can discuss the competitive side of the games, post your favorite Pokemon memes, and connect with other Pokemon creators!
  • Due to the recent changes with Twitter's API, it is no longer possible for Bulbagarden forum users to login via their Twitter account. If you signed up to Bulbagarden via Twitter and do not have another way to login, please contact us here with your Twitter username so that we can get you sorted.

Poke Transporter (Transfering Pokemon From Previous Gens)

You obviously don't have a very strong grasp on how working with code works, because you keep spouting this as if it will be an issue, when it pretty obviously isn't.

I know enough to know that cross gen compatibility is not simple enough for a one size fits all program to communicate with each and every one, that's absolutely ridiculous. It would have to be constantly updated with each new Pokemon generation, and then when a new handheld is released it has to be designed to work on those consoles. The idea that you can simply let it sit there forever without having to actually do anything is utterly laughable.

The program may need to be rewritten and reprogrammed, but like any program that stores data, the Bank will probably write all the information to a secure database which is inherently separate from the program itself. So let's say the hypothetical next-generation handheld nintendo console comes out, all they need to write is a set of a code to handle accessing said database and transferring your Pokemon from database to whatever media the game itself is stored on. It's an ideal solution because the technology storing the information about your Pokemon is totally separated from the technology that's used to access and transfer said Pokemon. Incidentally, PokeBank also means that they can write games for other system - for instance, a Colosseum-type game from the WiiU - and as long as they have the appropriate code, they can allow that game to transfer and deposit Pokemon at will.

No matter how you feel about the maintenance fee, this is actually the best possible solution for both transferring and storing of Pokemon in the long term. Cloud storage is something that is relatively easy to access and, thanks to how it works, is a real long-term solution for the issue of cross-generational transfer. Everything else that Gamefreak and Nintendo have done have essentially been stopgap measures that leave us in the same situation we were in before yesterday: not knowing whether it would actually be possible to transfer Pokemon.

If you want to doubt Gamefreak or if you simply don't want to pay, then that's your right, but considering the options and the available technology, this is the best solution and I applaud them for implementing it. I'll gladly shell out five dollars a year for this service.
 
Has anyone pointed out yet that Pokemon Bank comes out late December and the free trial period runs to late January? So there's a positive that you'll have plenty of time to plan, but a negative that you'll have to wait a couple of months after the release date to transfer Pokemon.

What?!?!

Source?
 
Not that surprising. I'd consider it the equivalent of unlocking Pal Park or the Transfer Lab post game.

Though it sucks I won't have my shiny Eevee for a shiny Sylveon on my first play through...
 
Has anyone pointed out yet that Pokemon Bank comes out late December and the free trial period runs to late January? So there's a positive that you'll have plenty of time to plan, but a negative that you'll have to wait a couple of months after the release date to transfer Pokemon.

What?!?!

Source?

Pokémon Bank Uhh...the site~
 
to be fair, the gen II - III compatibilty couldn't be done because of a lot of game mechanics were changed, particularly how ivs, evs, and stats worked, if im not mistaken.
also i think that pokemon bank being a paid service makes sense, although the app to transfer from gen V should work without needing pokemonbank. the price may go up in the future, but calling the thing a slippery slope a couple of days after it has been announced and without all the info its a bit unfair, after all it's something the franchise needed to improve the games
 
I am talking about Nintendo.

I'm not saying they could do Pokemon Bank in Gen 3, but they could have found some way to transfer between gens, after all they did from 1 to 2. Instead they cut it off completely to make more room for FRLG, they didnt expect the backlash, but instead of backing down and admitting their mistake they were dreaming about a way they could profit from the fans feeling this attached to the game data.

One if you're talking about Nintendo, then you are talking about the wrong entity. Gamefreak makes pokemon, not Nintendo.


Two, trading between 2 and 3, and trading between 1 and 2 is apples and oranges. The data structure didn't change between 1 and 2. They changed the data structure (AND THE SYSTEM) in gen 3, which would make trading between 2 and 3 a very difficult thing, if not impossible. Like I said, there's no telling if it would even be possible to have a GB and a GBA talk to each other to begin with, and if there was you'd better believe the method of doing that would have probably required a costly piece of hardware to achieve (such as the connector for pokemon stadium), throw in trying to convert the data of old pokemon to new pokemon and you have a really big and costly problem that isn't worth trying to solve as far as development costs go, especially back then.


Honestly it didn't bother me going from 2 to 3, even though I had hundreds of hours on my silver version, and pokemon gathered from 3 games (red, yellow, and silver) I didn't expect there to be compatibility between silver and sapphire because they were on different systems. Now they have created a system that will work for generations to come (of pokemon games) I will never have to wonder if some technical issue will stop me from being to migrate pokemon across games.
 
i think people are blowing this whole thing out of proportion about the 'omg 5 dollars, slippery slope, world is ending, they are going to scalp us for profit because they are really evil etcetc.
It's true, at least Game Freak isn't making us pay money for pre-programmed material (like the way I hear the recent PMD did) or is making us pay for pallet swaps. Judging from the interview, they actually went and thought "hey! let's make this nice service for everyone....but hey people were upset when we eventually had to retire PGL, we can't do that when there are actually Pokemon involved! Fine service charge."
Well they were lying. You really think they'd say "one day we sat down and thought 'Hey, what's a great way out of squeezing more $$$ out of players?'"
 
to be fair, the gen II - III compatibilty couldn't be done because of a lot of game mechanics were changed, particularly how ivs, evs, and stats worked, if im not mistaken.
also i think that pokemon bank being a paid service makes sense, although the app to transfer from gen V should work without needing pokemonbank. the price may go up in the future, but calling the thing a slippery slope a couple of days after it has been announced and without all the info its a bit unfair, after all it's something the franchise needed to improve the games

Yeah. I think a better idea would be to have a smaller version of Pokemon Box- five, three or even only one online box- that can work in conjunction with Transporter with or without the full version of Bank. Even if you had to pay a bit for Transporter-plus-mini-Bank, I'd like that a lot better than having to pay for one service just to use another. (Of course, when I inevitably buy Bank I will probably end up developing a massive Pokemon hoarding habit with all the shiny new space I get, but it's the principle of the matter.)
 
hence the maintenance fee. now it all makes sense, right?

*facepalm*

I'm sick of arguing about this. I'm already in one circular argument about this on Serebii and I don't need another.

The maintenance fee is reasonable for the Bank, but not the transfer. It's the fact that you have to pay for the transfer that's ridiculous.

But its not free. Nor should it be. Nintendo has to maintain the servers and protect all that data. Think about the millions upon millions of people who play Pokemon... Think of how many Pokemon that could add up to-- 3000 times what? 12+ million copies sold? That is A LOT of Pokemon to keep track of... Why should such a service that will maintain all that data for years to come be free? Who would maintain it? Who would service it? Who would support it when/if problems occur with storage/transfer? How would it be paid for?

Five dollars a year sounds like a steal to me.

Honestly, I think they could up the cost to $10/year if it means they could afford to have a free version of Bank solely for transfers. It'd still be a steal.

No matter how you feel about the maintenance fee, this is actually the best possible solution for both transferring and storing of Pokemon in the long term. Cloud storage is something that is relatively easy to access and, thanks to how it works, is a real long-term solution for the issue of cross-generational transfer. Everything else that Gamefreak and Nintendo have done have essentially been stopgap measures that leave us in the same situation we were in before yesterday: not knowing whether it would actually be possible to transfer Pokemon.

If you want to doubt Gamefreak or if you simply don't want to pay, then that's your right, but considering the options and the available technology, this is the best solution and I applaud them for implementing it. I'll gladly shell out five dollars a year for this service.

Look, I understand how great it is to have cloud storage for my games, really, that's awesome. But by having to pay for transfers, they crossed a line. Transfers are something that should not be charged for (ever again for those of you that are going to say "LOL two DSes"). And there's several ways they can get around having to charge for transfers, but they still decided to create a system that requires it. That is what upsets me with this whole issue.
 
Also, for people talking about how Sony and Microsoft are far more ridiculous about these things, I have a question: How did they start out? Presumably they didn't go from being reasonable and not charging anything to what they do now....
 
I'd like to think the delay is because they're trying to figure out a free version for the bank with the transporter (obviously limited transfer and storage capabilities) but I wouldn't get my hopes up. I do agree with @Bolt the Cat that the transporter itself could have been its own thing, having the capacity to communicate with Gen V and store a limited number of Pokemon (e.g., 6) and then communicate with Gen VI and deposit the Pokemon.

Though the fact that the Transporter is separate from the bank makes me think that the transport *may* be usable without the bank to a limited degree. We don't know the full details yet (though I doubt Game Freak really has that foresight).

@Lugiafanatic;

If you're going to compare Sony and Microsoft with something, it should be Nintendo not Game Freak. Nintendo already has paid DLC in their Nintendo Network, and it started out with the red logo Nintendo WFC and that was in 2008. Considering its been five years since Nintendo actually acknowledged paid DLC, and how Pokemon is an integral part of the core Nintendo franchises, you're going to have to give me a better argument than what seems to be the DLC equivalent to "try weed once and you'll turn into a meth head"

And as far as paid DLC goes, I'd be more than happy to welcome paid DLC that actually adds content to the game rather than be forced to pay for the same game again in the form of third versions (though I'm not quite sure I'm prepared to listen to people complain about how they'd rather buy the same game with additional features for ~$35 rather than pay ~$10-15 for the Battle Frontier that they'll include in the game anyway)
 
Last edited:
I'd like to think the delay is because they're trying to figure out a free version for the bank with the transporter (obviously limited transfer and storage capabilities) but I wouldn't get my hopes up. I do agree with @Bolt the Cat that the transporter itself could have been its own thing, having the capacity to communicate with Gen V and store a limited number of Pokemon (e.g., 6) and then communicate with Gen VI and deposit the Pokemon.

Though the fact that the Transporter is separate from the bank makes me think that the transport *may* be usable without the bank to a limited degree. We don't know the full details yet (though I doubt Game Freak really has that foresight).

@Lugiafanatic;

If you're going to compare Sony and Microsoft with something, it should be Nintendo not Game Freak. Nintendo already has paid DLC in their Nintendo Network, and it started out with the red logo Nintendo WFC and that was in 2008. Considering its been five years since Nintendo actually acknowledged paid DLC, and how Pokemon is an integral part of the core Nintendo franchises, you're going to have to give me a better argument than what seems to be the DLC equivalent to "try weed once and you'll turn into a meth head"
I asked
Also, for people talking about how Sony and Microsoft are far more ridiculous about these things, I have a question: How did they start out? Presumably they didn't go from being reasonable and not charging anything to what they do now....
Did Sony and Microsoft start out this way?
 
Did Sony and Microsoft start out this way?
Should I have responded saying that was slippery slope argument and left it at that? Because the answer would be yes. Of course, as a person trained in the social sciences, I also know how people (and scientists) can phrase questions in such a way that they get a response that paints the narrative they want to make.

So instead of playing into your little game, I offered up another comparison--Nintendo. They have acknowledged paid DLC since 2008. Its been five years and there has been no escalation. Pokemon is a franchise controlled by Nintendo. If I recall, the Pokemon Franchise is an equal 1/3 split between Nintendo, TPC, and Game Freak. TPC itself is an affiliated company of Nintendo, so really, Pokemon is more owned by Nintendo than it is by Game Freak. In fact, it was Iwata urging Masuda that they do something different that kept them from releasing "Pokemon Grey" and "Pokemon Gray" as third versions and made sequels instead.

So the simple answer "yes" does not really capture the true image and instead feeds into your slippery slope narrative.


And since I didn't respond to this earlier:
Well they were lying. You really think they'd say "one day we sat down and thought 'Hey, what's a great way out of squeezing more $$$ out of players?'"

I'm really hoping you're not one of those people that were complaining that we got sequels over third versions in Gen V.
 
Yeah, but this is the first time that GameFreak has had paid content. And from the description on Wikipedia you linked me to, it looks like there's a lot more DLC now than there was then.

And no, I thought sequels were a really good idea. If they had release paired third versions instead, as Masuda originally intended, then, yeah, I'd have a problem.
 
Yeah, but this is the first time that GameFreak has had paid content. And from the description on Wikipedia you linked me to, it looks like there's a lot more DLC now than there was then.

Yes, but is Game Freak's philosophy closer to Nintendo's or Sony and Microsoft?
 
Also, for people talking about how Sony and Microsoft are far more ridiculous about these things, I have a question: How did they start out? Presumably they didn't go from being reasonable and not charging anything to what they do now....

It wasn't until the concept of DLC emerged (which IIRC wasn't popularized until around the beginning of 7th gen), that this kind of ridiculousness happened.

Yes, but is Game Freak's philosophy closer to Nintendo's or Sony and Microsoft?

In terms of DLC, they're more like Microsoft and Sony. Even without the presence of formal DLC, they've been known to reserve features that could reasonably be added to the games and put them into add ons to make them worth using. Given their track record, I wouldn't be surprised if they keep this up with DLC.

EDIT: Actually, it's not so much Sony and Microsoft that do this, but third party companies. The worst offenders are usually companies like EA and Capcom (IDK exactly though because I don't buy games made by either of those companies, though). Either way, given how some of these companies handle DLC is eerily similar to how Game Freak handles their games without DLC, I'd say Game Freak is pretty untrustworthy in this regard.
 
Last edited:
In terms of DLC, they're more like Microsoft and Sony. Even without the presence of formal DLC, they've been known to reserve features that could reasonably be added to the games and put them into add ons to make them worth using. Given their track record, I wouldn't be surprised if they keep this up with DLC.

EDIT: Actually, it's not so much Sony and Microsoft that do this, but third party companies. The worst offenders are usually companies like EA and Capcom (IDK exactly though because I don't buy games made by either of those companies, though). Either way, given how some of these companies handle DLC is eerily similar to how Game Freak handles their games without DLC, I'd say Game Freak is pretty untrustworthy in this regard.

I'd rather be less cynical and believe they wanted to give us new things to talk about as the generation progressed, but without a proper means of DLC, they coped with withholding event legendaries. Of course, now the can make them free DLC without having to pre-program them into the games.
 
Really don't see any reason for this delay, why not release it when it comes out? Also disapointed it won't work for DPPTHGSS, I know it was always unlikely to be able to go from 4 to 6, but there really was nothing stopping them and it would fix that nasty mistake of theirs not letting you transerfer items from DPPTHGSS to BWBW2

It's called development time? Much like the gap between the 8th of January and the 12th of October.

Also, that wasn't a 'mistake'. It was to prevent people from swapping TMs over to Gen V, where they were no longer single use or holdable by Pokemon.
It also prevents people transferring rarer items such as Soul Dew & the Orbs over.

I didn't mean mistake as in by accident, I meant mistake as in they made a big mistake which peed a lot of people off. They made Gen 3 incompatible with past gens so they could make more money flogging FRLG, and people want me to trust them now??? At least Team Rocket are open about being thieves.

And really, from what we've seen they've got it ready already, it seemed to be working fine in the previews, and they have over a whole month still to fix any errors. They were able to release Pokemon Radar the same time as BW2, and Pokemon Bank looks a lot less complex to programme than Pokemon Radar.

I find it highly amazing how people seem to find anything to complain about these days.

Do you have proof that Gamefreak will increase the annual payment? No.

Do you know for sure that Pokemon radar is harder to program than Pokemon bank? Are you a professional programmer?

Do you have proof that Gamefreak decided to make gen 2 and 3 incompatible? No. It's clear from the very beginning that trading and transferring Pokemon was an aim for GameFreak. They couldn't figure out how to back then, and now they've found a permanent solution so the same thing doesn't happen again.

However, I highly suggest you quit complaining, open your eyes and atleast attempt to understand why Gamefreak needs (that's right, needs, not wants) to charge a very small annual fee in order to maintain this app. Last I checked, GameFreak don't have an unlimited amount of money, they need funds in order to keep themselves running, and they've stated they need to charge an annual fee in order to maintain the app. Don't believe them? I'm sure the world will stop spinning from how little GameFreak is going to care about people like you complaining over nothing.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Have you stopped to consider that MAYBE they had to tie the PokePorter with the PokeBank app? After all, the former DOES have to make use of the latter to shove your Mon from Gen5 to Gen6, it's not like the Porter is it's own standalone app here. Sure you can get it and move Pokemon to it and not have PokeBank, but to move the Mon from the Porter you do. Have you stopped to consider maybe the Porter app can't communicate directly to Gen6 and needs the Bank to act as a translator of sorts?

The rest of us will enjoy our game and accept the fact that (for now, they might be able to code the Porter later for it to truly be its own standalone transfer app) we need to pay 5/year to do what everyone was worried you couldn't do this time; transfer Pokemon. I'm tired of seeing people complain over something that's so damn trivial, simply because they want to complain.

As far as the slippery slope excuse, please, for the love of common sense and logical thinking, stop and consider Pokemon's target demographic. It's YOUNGER people, older kids and teens. Stop and consider that if GF did try to slowly suck away more money, the majority of people paying for the service would be parents, and they might very well refuse to pay for a service that gets to be too expensive. On top of that, and I don't even know why the hell I have to keep saying this as again, it should be common sense, but...

THE. MONEY. DOES. NOT. GO. TO. GAMEFREAK.

IT. GOES. TO. POKEBANK'S. SERVER. UPKEEP. AND. MANAGEMENT.

There, I said it in small words and very slowly so people could understand. Now stop that GF is trying to line their pockets and are money-grubbing because it's clearly not the case. Yes, it might suck that you have to pay to move your Pokemon from Gen5 to Gen6, I won't deny that. But to accuse GF of doing this simply as a money-grab and rant like jerks when the damn game isn't even released yet is just so...I think you get my point.

And to the people who have said they don't like having to pay, I'm not aiming any of this at you. I'm talking to the people who are, literally, throwing a fit over the whole thing and doing nothing but criticize and complain and accuse.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
@Dog of Hellsing. i wish i could like your post 100x. but some people will continue to argue for the sake of arguing. they can go 'slippery slope' all they want... but gamefreak has given us no reason to distrust them, after they worked out a system that can theoretically be the end-all-be-all of pokemon transfer and storage but all they can think about is 'omg 5 bucks a year .. now but we all know all companies are greedy bastards'.... let them think what they want. they dont have to transfer their 'mons. thats their prerogative.

the rest of us can enjoy this generous and efficacious new feature while they cry because their beloved pokemon are stuck in gen 5. boo freaking hoo.
 
Back
Top Bottom